I agree; furthermore, I think the author skewed Franzen's take to be more cynical than it was: I imagine the side of David that advocated going the Kurt Cobain

I agree; furthermore, I think the author skewed Franzen's take to be more cynical than it was: I imagine the side of David that advocated going the Kurt Cobain route speaking in the seductively reasonable voice of the devil in “The Screwtape Letters,” which was one of David’s favorite books, and pointing out that death by his own hand would simultaneously satisfy his loathsome hunger for career advantage and, because it would represent a capitulation to the side of himself that his embattled better side perceived as evil, further confirm the justice of his death sentence. This is not to say that he spent his last months and weeks in lively intellectual conversation with himself, à la Screwtape or the Grand Inquisitor. He was so sick, toward the end, that every new waking thought of his, on whatever subject, immediately corkscrewed into the same conviction of his worthlessness, causing him continual dread and pain. Franzen's take, IMO, was less suicide as final career move and more suicide as final act of self-loathing and rejection of last remnants of positivity.